A scream.
Sherlock woke up with a start, barely managing not to jump out of bed. As he tried to catch his breath, he looked down at Jayden next to him, who was fast asleep. Sherlock didn't hear anything, which meant Lestrade probably wasn't awake either.
Dreaming then.
Good.
Sherlock sighed, and got up.
Jayden managed to kick his blanket off in the night, and the flat was chilly this morning, so Sherlock threw the blanket back over him.
Best to let him sleep.
Sherlock sat in the same chair he had the night before, and just watched Jayden sleep while his mind wandered.
Dream...
What was it about?
Don't remember...
Scream?
Where did the scream come from?
Recognized the voice... Who's was it?
Not John, not Jayden, not Molly, not Lestrade, not Mrs. Hudson, and definitely not Mycroft.
Then who?
"Not important. Not important. Not important." Sherlock muttered to himself.
John.
John's missing, John's kidnapped.
Why would someone kidnap John?
Someone from his army days wanting revenge?
No, can't be that, who would want revenge on a doctor?
Unless he didn't save their life, then they might want revenge.
But then they'd be dead, so that's not possible.
Family member of a dead soldier?
Unlikely they'd hunt the doctor down instead of the killer.
Sherlock noticed another presence had joined the room, and he looked over to the point in which the hallway met the living room.
"I'm surprised you're up." Lestrade said, walking into the room.
"Couldn't sleep." Sherlock answered.
Lestrade walked into the kitchen, and Sherlock heard the coffee maker start up.
Sherlock ventured into the room, sitting down at the table. He watched Lestrade prepare his coffee.
"Black, two sugars, right?"
Sherlock nodded almost imperceptibly, his mind in another place.
Lestrade sat down across from him at the table, and passed a steaming mug over to him.
Sherlock inhaled in the scent before taking an experimental sip.
It was a tad hotter than he had expected, but not scalding.
They sat in silence for a few moments before Lestrade spoke.
"Couldn't or didn't?"
"Hm?" Sherlock turned his gaze up to Lestrade.
"You couldn't sleep, or you didn't try?"
One side of his lips quirked up, forming something between a smile and a grimace.
"The first one." Sherlock answered.
In attempt to change the subject, Sherlock spoke again.
"I didn't ask for coffee." he said, his tone not accusing, but rather questioning.
"Maybe not, but you're going to need it." Lestrade said. "We all are, if we plan to avoid falling flat our faces by the end of the day."
"I wouldn't put it past your team to trip over their own shoe laces..." Sherlock responded.
Lestrade shrugged,
"I take what I can get."
Jayden yawned.
He flopped himself off of the futon, and began to walk into the kitchen where Sherlock and Lestrade were sitting.
Lestrade tried to hold back a chuckle as Jayden walked straight into the wall. Lestrade glanced over to Sherlock, who seemed to be quite amused as well.
"Not a morning person, are you?" Lestrade asked.
Jayden mumbled something Lestrade couldn't quite make out.
"What was that?" he asked.
"I said it wasn't there last night." Jayden muttered.
"How would you know?" Lestrade said. "You were asleep."
Jayden raised an eyebrow.
"Wait- you were just pretending, weren't you?" Lestrade said, crossing his arms.
Jayden shrugged,
"Didn't want to walk."
Sherlock didn't seem to care much, Lestrade noticed.
He knew the whole time. Lestrade realized. He carried him anyway.
"Well, now that we're all up, we'd best be getting off then. I told Anderson to send the evidence to the lab at St. Bart's." Lestrade said.
"Why?" Sherlock asked.
Lestrade shrugged.
"It's bigger, you're used to it." he said. "You work faster there than you do in our forensics lab, and Anderson couldn't care less where he does his work. Only makes sense."'
"Hm."
"Both of you get ready," Lestrade said, "there should be cereal in the cabinet if you're hungry."
Fifteen minutes later, they were all in the car.
They came up to the laboratory where they would process and analyze the evidence they had found. Anderson walked through the door almost immediately afterwards.
"So, what do we look for?" Lestrade asked.
There was a tense moment where Sherlock felt like a deer caught in headlights.
Jayden, Lestrade, and Anderson were all staring at him, waiting for orders.
I have no idea.
The one time that I have full cooperation, and I have NO IDEA!
Sherlock just stood there as alarm bells began ringing in his head, telling him he should move, talk, or react in some way. Basically, do anything at all.
But he didn't.
He was frozen as panic settled in on his mind.
John's missing.
There are dozens of clues.
And I have no ideas at all.
In fact, I can't think.
My brain is muddled, things aren't fitting together like they normally do.
Alright. Alright... Need to run diagnostics. Find the factors that are causing trouble.
Okay... Memory... Memory is fine...
Sherlock heard mumbling in the background, but was in his mind, and thus unable to make sense of it.
Diagnostics failed. Situation too noisy. Need to find quiet space with limited/controlled sensory distractions.
Solution: Escape current environment.
Sherlock quickly brought his mind back into the real world just in time to hear the tail end of a question spoken by Anderson.
"... where do we start?"
Sherlock knew there had probably been more to that question, but just used the question that his mind supplied.
"Anderson, you..." Sherlock trailed off for only a moment, a short enough silence that it was nearly undetectable. But Lestrade noticed. "Organize the evidence. Put it in piles, put everything alike in the same spot. Jayden, help him, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. And vice versa."
Sherlock seemed in an awful hurry to get those words out of his mouth.
"Lestrade, I don't think that white powder we found has any importance, but I'm going to run it through the mass spectrometer just in case it does." Sherlock said. "I need you to prepare the sample."
It was a moment before Sherlock realized that Lestrade was purposefully staring at him.
"What?" He asked.
"I'm a detective," Lestrade said, "not a chemist. I don't know how."
Sherlock sighed and rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Escape. Escape. Escape.
Why can't I even escape?
"He can do it then." Sherlock said, pointing to Jayden.
"But I don't-"
"Yes, you do." Sherlock said, before Jayden could even finish his protest. "I showed you, remember?"
"No you- Wait- so that's what you were doing?" Jayden asked. "You call doing it while I was in the same room 'showing me'?"
Quiet.
Stop talking!
I need quiet!
Sherlock felt himself growing more desperate for silence.
"You do remember how though, don't you?" Sherlock said.
"Yes..."
"Then I think it counts." Sherlock said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
Lestrade noticed that Sherlock left the room quicker, and with more urgency than he usually would.
Well, he thought, He didn't give me a job...
Sherlock tried to prevent himself from running out of the room. Once he was in the empty hallway though, he let himself speed up a little. He eventually found himself in the morgue.
Coincidentally, it was Molly Hooper's shift.
A/N: What's going to happen when Sherlock sees Molly? Will he leave? If he stays, what will they talk about? How soon are Lestrade, Anderson, and Jayden going to wonder where he went? Reviews are much appreciated.